Teen-mum flick gets filmgoers hungry for hamburger phone
I want ice cream! And pickles! And communications equipment!
Companies like Apple and Sony have known for years that movie product placement translates into big bucks. The latest such placement is...a hamburger phone, which features in new teens-up-the-duff movie Juno.
Statistics floating around online, which have been attributed to eBay, claim that sales of the retro handset jumped 759 per cent in the month after the film’s US release. The average sales price for the corded handset on the auction site is around $15 (£8/€11).
Don't be fooled, this burger's not for eating
Quite why people would want to talk into something that’s been around for decades, rather than a state of the art wireless Dect handset is beyond us. However, that hasn’t stopped numerous companies cashing on the sales wave, while it lasts.
Hong Kong-based online retailer Cellphonefocus.com has already announced that it's stocking the fast-food phone. It's also trying to super-size its sales by selling French fry phones.
Film studio Fox Searchlight hasn’t commented on the hamburger phone’s popularity, but it’s rumoured the company gave some of the phones to reviewers as part of the film’s publicity campaign.
Juno: eating for two now
At least one thing’s for sure, Del Boy and Rodders will be upping their prices for hamburger handsets down Peckham market this week.
Written by a erstwhile stripper Diablo Cody, Juno has taken more than $78m in the US and garnered four Oscar nominations, including best director (for Jason Reitman), best actress (Ellen Page), best film and best script.
The Hamburger Phone is available from Cellphonefocus.com now for $16 (£9/€12). A European price hasn’t been served-up yet.
COMMENTS
Food Phones...
I remember in my first year of university we (as a prank... can you tell there were 4 engineers in my block?!) dismantled our friends internal phone and built the earpiece and microphone into a banana... worked well for a while before the banana turned to mush.
We then transferred the earpiece and microphone to polystyrene burger box - wasn't particularly ergonomic but it worked...
Missed opportunity
With mobile phones probably more popular than thethered phones (wouldn't really know, I hate both types), what about a mobile phone hamburger?
Forget the burger phone, I want the garfield phone
as seen in Godfrey Ho's timeless classic Ninja Terminator.
Burger Phone
They used to use one on the TV show "Home & Away" in the diner years ago. You can see it in this clip on the edge of the counter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibAEGTI_3pI
Meh
It's an alright film with some pretty music by Sonic Youth, etc but only average, certainly not Oscar material. And the only people to buy this pos phone are likely to be the same people who buy rubbish like the iphone.
